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NZXT Beta Evo Review

Closer Look:

Taking a look at the case outside of the packaging, you are going to notice that the paint job on it is completely black, however the overall design of the case is very smooth. The main side that you are going to be working with has a place to install two 120mm fans to help cool your video card as well as the other components on your motherboard along with supplying more cool air to the CPU's cooling device you have installed. The opposite side of the case has a very simple side panel, the only feature that you see on this side is that there is a depression toward the back where you would be able to place your fingers to help slide off the side panel when it is installed on the case. The back side of the NZXT Beta Evo case is very simplistic, however it does pack some features that should catch your eye, the first being the fact that NZXT has placed the PSU at the bottom of the case. This seems to have become the standard on most cases out on the market, allowing for quicker exhaust of the hot air coming off the CPU's cooling device. Above that is where you are going to find the expansion slots for installing a video card, sound card, or any other expansion card you may want to install in your system; the covers that come with the Beta Evo are unique in the fact that they are completely mesh, there is no steel siding on them, which will allow more air to freely flow out of them without any blockage. Sitting to the right of the expansion slots is another mesh spot on the case, this is going to allow more air to freely flow out, but there are also two rubber grommets installed in the mesh to allow you to feed some plastic tubing through if you were going to install an external water cooling system on the case. Continuing up the back of the case, you are going to come to the opening for the rear I/O panel of the motherboard, and sitting to the right of that is where NZXT has a spot to install a 120mm exhaust fan. The front of the case is quite simplistic as well, at the top there is a white printed NZXT logo, under that there are four drive bay covers, and following down there is a mesh type material to allow air to be sucked in from outside of the case by the 120mm fan that is placed behind the front bezel, we will take a closer look at that later.

As I mentioned before, the main side panel that you are going to be using the most to work on the inside of your case has been painted completely black like the rest of the case. NZXT has two holes in the side panel with mesh type material and four screw holes to mount 120mm fans on them to either suck in fresh air from outside of the case or exhaust it out of the case. NZXT did not supply any fans to be installed on the side panel.

Taking a look at the inside of the case without the side panel on, you are going to see that NZXT took its time in designing this case; not only did NZXT take the time to paint every aspect of the inside of the case in the same black color, it also decided to put a cutout on the motherboard tray where the back plate for a large CPU cooler would be going so you can access it without having to pull the motherboard out of your case for a simple swapping of a cooler. The right side of the case is where you are going to find all of the drive bays, there are four 5.25" drive bays that run to the outside of the case, there are also five 3.5" internal drive bays for the installation of hard drives. All of the drive bays in the Beta Evo do have tool-less installation features. The 3.5" drive bays are turned at a 90° angle so that you can easily access the hard drives and swap them out without having to remove the PSU due the the placement and how close they are to each other.

Tucked away inside of the Beta Evo's 3.5" drive bays was a white box with an instruction manual, inside of this white box are all of the accessories that you are going to need to install your components inside of the Beta Evo. The instruction manual is going to give you all of the information that you need to know about how to use the tool-less installation features for your drives, this information is listed in multiple languages allowing it to be shipped anywhere and allows the customer to be able to read them. The white accessories box also includes a bag of screws, a few zip ties to help control where your wires are going inside of your case, as well as a motherboard speaker for any error codes you may need to know about.

Now that we know the basic layout of the NZXT Beta Evo, it's time to take an even closer look at the parts of the case that are going to allow it to function properly.